If You’re Going to Do It, Do It Properly! (5)
“Hup!”
“Haaaaah!”
The cart tore along the mountain road like a horse with its tail on fire.
Racing over the uneven path at full speed sent it bouncing again and again, like a ball thrown to the ground, but thanks to the Dang family craftsmen’s repairs, it was holding up even better than it had when it was new.
Still, the cart might endure the punishment, but what about the people?
“Hey!”
Chung Myung stuck his head out from the back of the cart and barked, “Take it easy! You’re gonna break my back!”
Jo Gul, who had been gritting his teeth as he pulled, snapped his head around.
“Why’re you complaining when you’re not even the one pulling it?”
“What’s the rush? Why’re you running like your ass is on fire?”
“What good does it do to arrive late?”
“No, but weren’t you whining like you were dying the whole way to the Dang family?”
At Chung Myung’s sullen remark, Jo Gul only shrugged with a calm face.
“It’s manageable now.”
“...Huh?”
Chung Myung blinked, caught off guard by the answer. But Yoon Jong, who was pulling alongside Jo Gul, also nodded.
“Yes. It feels light now. Like something’s been taken off.”
The two even jokingly lifted the cart just a little and set it back down.
“...Are you two insane? You added different metal and even the sword cases. No way it got lighter.”
“Right? And yet that’s how it feels.”
Just then, a dignified Buddhist chant slipped from Hye Yeon’s lips at the front of the cart.
“Amitabha.”
He pressed his palms together and said solemnly, “You benefactors are discussing the true meaning of the Buddha’s teachings. Everything in this world is merely a matter of the mind. If one thinks it is heavy, then it is heavy. If one thinks it is light, then it is light. This is...”
“What are you spouting, you fake monk?”
“...”
Hye Yeon turned toward Chung Myung with a wounded look.
“S-Sir, I may be a monk from Shaolin, but calling me a fake...?”
“You ran off without listening to the abbot. Doesn’t that make you a defrocked monk?”
“...”
“And if you’re a defrocked monk, then you’re fake.”
Hye Yeon’s face began to crumble. He simply had no idea where to begin denying it.
“D-defrocked... defrocked... Abbot... why did you send me here? Abbot...”
Watching Hye Yeon sink into gloom like boiled greens, Chung Myung shook his head.
A monk with that little backbone!
He was just about to say something else when Baek Cheon, who had been silently pulling the cart, slowly turned his head and smiled at him.
“Chung Myung.”
“Yeah?”
“If you’ve got nothing to do, stop picking fights and lie down quietly and sleep. We’ll get there on our own.”
“...Huh?”
“We clearly agreed not to say a word on the way back.”
“...”
“Why don’t you try keeping your own promises for once?”
In the end, Chung Myung flopped back down with a sulky face.
Fine, whatever.
If they got there faster, that was good for him anyway.
He fixed his gaze on the sky and brought the bottle in his hand up to his lips. At that moment, Baek Ah, lurking in a corner, darted over as if unwilling to miss the chance and clung to him.
Chung Myung frowned.
“Get off me, why don’t you? I’ll toss you right out!”
Kiieeek!
“Oh, you little—”
But even trembling all over, Baek Ah refused to leave his side. No, it clung even more desperately than before.
“Haa.”
Chung Myung let out a long sigh and looked back up at the sky.
The others might not understand why this damn marten was so attached to him and no one else, but Chung Myung knew the reason well enough.
A spiritual beast was, in essence, an animal that had absorbed the energy of nature and gained spirituality through it.
In other words, the more excellent qi it absorbed, the stronger it became, and the longer it lived.
And...
Rub. Rub.
“...”
This little thing had clearly fallen head over heels for the pure energy flowing from Chung Myung’s body.
The qi coursing through Chung Myung now was the crystallization of purity that even the Plum Blossom Sword Saint, who had devoted his whole life to cultivating the Dao, had never been able to create.
It was absurdly inefficient, yes—he had made it so pure that gathering even a tiny amount took forever—but still, wasn’t it a qi of unrivaled purity?
From Baek Ah’s perspective, it was like sifting through muddy water over and over, only to suddenly see water so clear that it couldn’t possibly exist in nature. It would have been stranger not to go wild over it.
So it was natural, really...
“You’re weirdly annoying, you know that?”
Chung Myung grabbed Baek Ah by the scruff and tossed it into a corner. Baek Ah let out a furious squeak and immediately came scrambling back to cling to him again.
“Haaah.”
Now that people weren’t clinging to him as much, animals were the ones doing it.
Chung Myung gave up entirely, lifted Baek Ah by the scruff, and tucked it behind his neck. Then he lay back down with the marten as a pillow, let his body go slack, and stared blankly at the sky.
The endless blue spread out above him, and his mind settled a little.
At least the rough outline’s done.
By visiting the Dang family and laying the groundwork for the alliance, the blueprint had been completed. Getting this far had been no easy task either.
Still.
“It’s not enough yet.”
Chung Myung muttered low under his breath.
The Hua Shan of the past had been incomparably stronger than the Hua Shan of today.
But even that Hua Shan would have been powerless amid a war that set the entire Central Plains ablaze. The war against the Demonic Sect was not something a single sect could handle by itself.
Even if Hua Shan became several times stronger than it was now, it still couldn’t solve everything alone.
There’s more than one thing I need.
First, strength. Then money. And then one more thing...
Chung Myung tilted his head and glanced at Hong Dae-gwang, who was sitting on the side of the cart. Since he was useless anyway, they had decided he wouldn’t be pulling it on the way back.
Hong Dae-gwang asked innocently, “Hm? Why?”
“...”
Haa.
Chung Myung only shook his head.
Even the beggars he had known back in the day might have had one screw loose here and there, but they were good at bringing in information.
Though I guess the beggars I knew then were at least elder level.
Expecting information from a mere Seven-Knot Beggar like Hong Dae-gwang that belonged at the level of a Nine-Knot Beggar was probably asking too much.
“...Still, he’s way too much of a freeloader.”
“Hm? You mean that marten?”
“...Sure, whatever.”
Too lazy to even answer properly, Chung Myung gave a perfunctory nod.
“Old beggar.”
“Yes, Mount Hua Divine Dragon.”
Hong Dae-gwang thumped his chest with a proud expression.
“If you’re curious about something, just ask me. I am, after all, the information network of Mount Hua.”
“...You’re a blockhead, more like.”
“Hm?”
“No, nothing.”
Chung Myung stared at him with half-lidded eyes before speaking again.
“So, old beggar.”
“Yes. Speak.”
“You’re a Seven-Knot Beggar right now.”
“Indeed. Not many people my age hold the rank of Seven-Knot Beggar. It means I’m that capable, does it not?”
“Alright, whatever. How long does it take to become Eight-Knot?”
“Eight-Knot?”
“Yeah. Better yet, Nine-Knot.”
Hong Dae-gwang let out an incredulous laugh as if to say what the hell are you talking about?
“Mount Hua Divine Dragon. You’re young and inexperienced, so perhaps you don’t know, but in the Beggars’ Sect, an Eight-Knot Beggar is at least an elder or the head of a region. W-Well, of course, I do aim to become the branch leader of Shaanxi beyond the Hwamyeong branch, but I’ve never even heard of anyone becoming a branch leader at my age.”
“Then what about Nine-Knot?”
“Nine-Knot means the supreme elders!”
Ah. So those guys back then were supreme elders. Chung Myung had not paid much attention to them because, well, they were beggars.
“Hmm. So the highest you can realistically climb to right now is Eight-Knot, then?”
“That’s right. Unless the present sect leader chooses the successor and steps down.”
“Mm.”
Chung Myung scratched his chin.
The Beggars’ Sect’s successor to the sect leader was called the So-gol-gae.
“Come to think of it, didn’t you say you were one of the candidates for So-gol-gae?”
“Ahem! It’s a little embarrassing to say myself, but yes.”
“How did the Beggars’ Sect end up in this state...”
“What was that?”
“Nope. Nothing.”
Chung Myung sighed deeply, feeling stifled.
Well... it’s not really the old beggar’s fault, actually.
Hong Dae-gwang was the branch leader of the Hwamyeong branch.
Considering the influence Hwamyeong had in the world, there was a limit to what a mere branch leader in a small county could do.
With Mount Hua right nearby, he probably had access to more information than an ordinary branch leader, but even so, a branch was still just a branch.
In the end, if he wanted to squeeze any more useful information out of the Beggars’ Sect, Hong Dae-gwang would need to be raised to a higher position.
It would be good if he were promoted to the position of branch leader overseeing Shaanxi. Better yet, if he became the So-gol-gae, even better.
The problem was...
Is this really the right thing to do?
Wasn’t this just tearing out the roots of someone else’s comfortably growing sect and throwing them off a cliff? Would that old man really be okay as sect leader?
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
“...No. Nothing.”
Chung Myung answered by staring at the sky.
I should think this over a little.
Of course, the Beggars’ Sect was still part of the Nine Great Sects and One Gang, and therefore a sect that deserved a good bite taken out of it. But perhaps because he thought they were one of the better ones among the lot, Chung Myung felt a rare twinge of guilt.
Oh? So you do have a conscience?
“Kakh! I told you not to come out when I didn’t call for you!”
Chung Myung suddenly shouted at the top of his lungs, and Hong Dae-gwang jumped in shock and looked at him.
“What’s wrong all of a sudden?”
“No... it’s nothing.”
“You’re acting strangely today.”
Yeah, tell me about it.
Chung Myung only let out another long sigh.
Let’s go back to Mount Hua first and think there.
He had been turning his brain over so much these past few days that it felt like mice were running around inside his head. In any case, his martial brothers couldn’t touch him, so he figured it would be better to return to Mount Hua and rest his mind on the way.
Thud!
“Damn it!”
But the violently bouncing cart wouldn’t even allow that.
“Why the hell is it so bumpy again?!”
When he shouted in frustration, a reply came from the front.
“We’re on a mountain road. I’m crossing it in one go, so instead of whining, hold on tight.”
Ah, yes. Of course you would.
Chung Myung grumbled and jammed the bottle straight into his mouth.
But he really is pulling this thing well.
The cart was racing over the slope as if it were flat ground—no, as if it were going downhill. At this point, he might have to call this a human red hare rather than a human ox.
Maybe it’s about time to move to the next stage.
With time to spare anyway, Chung Myung began thinking up an even more rigorous and excellent training method for his martial brothers.
Then, all of a sudden...
“Hm?”
Chung Myung abruptly lifted his head.
A presence?
Whoosh!
Just as he was about to rise, a sharp cutting sound split the air, and something came spinning in from the slope ahead.
“Huh?”
“What the hell!”
The speeding cart came to a sudden halt. Unable to resist the force, it was yanked into the air for a split second before slamming back down as if thrown to the ground.
Thud!
“Tsk.”
Chung Myung, who had jolted up with the cart, quickly steadied himself and rose to his feet.
A huge dao was embedded in the ground before him.
“And what the hell is this?”
The blade stabbed into the earth a short distance in front of the cart could hardly be interpreted as having good intentions, no matter how generously one looked at it.
And then.
Fwish! Fwish!
More sounds tore through the air in quick succession, and massive weapons began flying in from the rear and the sides, stabbing into the ground to encircle the cart from every direction.
The dense barrage of weapons sealed off every path around the carriage in an instant.
“Ha...”
A sigh escaped Chung Myung’s lips before he could stop it.
“Seriously, which one of you idiots wants to die? Where the hell are you throwing swords? Do I have to get one stuck in my head before you idiots come to your senses?”
Just as he was about to roll his eyes, Baek Cheon said gravely, “Chung Myung.”
“Yeah?”
“This doesn’t look ordinary. The power behind those weapons is no joke.”
“Still nothing.”
Chung Myung stood, rolled his neck left and right, and soon a group of people began appearing through the thick trees lining both sides of the mountain path. Feeling out their presence, he said, “At most it’s only a few dozen bandits. Something like this can be handled with my toes...”
But then he suddenly clamped his mouth shut and turned his head.
“Why?”
“...Uh.”
Then he scratched the back of his head, looking mildly embarrassed.
“What did I just say? A few dozen?”
“You said dozens.”
“Uh... let me revise that. One hundred... no, one hundred and fifty. No, wait, two hundred...”
Baek Cheon went blank.
“Why do you keep increasing the number, you bastard!”
“N-no! More are coming out from behind the mountain right now!”
Why are those bastards still coming out?
Wait a second...
Uh...
Bandits poured out of the brush like swarming ants. It was strange enough to wonder where they had even hidden so many bodies.
“...”
Their numbers quickly became so dense that there wasn’t even space to plant a foot around the cart. Counting those still emerging from the brush, the total seemed likely to exceed a thousand.
“Well, well.”
Chung Myung let out a dry laugh.
There definitely wasn’t anyone within a hundred jang just a moment ago.
They had kept themselves just outside the reach of his senses, then closed in all at once. This had to be a trap prepared from the start.
Of course, part of it was also because he hadn’t bothered to stay on guard.
“...What do we do?”
The Mount Hua disciples turned to Chung Myung with uneasy eyes, as if the sheer number of enemies had stunned them.
But Chung Myung twisted his face in annoyance.
“What do you mean, what do we do? The disciples of Mount Hua never retreat!”
At Chung Myung’s proud shout, all of the Mount Hua disciples bit down hard on their lips.
“That’s right!”
“They’re just bandits!”
Their fighting spirit blazed up at once. Chung Myung stared straight at the bandits and shouted with firm resolve.
“Alright!”
Standing tall, chest out, he looked every inch the fearless hero.
At his signal, the disciples of Mount Hua all drew their swords at once, looking ready to charge the instant Chung Myung gave the word.
Then Chung Myung’s booming shout rang in their ears.
“First! Let’s talk this over!”
“...”
Silence fell for a moment. The Mount Hua disciples slowly turned around with faces full of disbelief.
Chung Myung, still standing there with his chest proudly puffed out, added loudly, “Like civilized people!”
“...”
And then, staring at the faces of his martial brothers as they looked back at him with utter, world-shattering despair, he asked proudly, “Why? What?”
...
Better to stay alive first.
For now!